MPLA makes $4.76M offer to settle land claim

The Marianas Public Lands Authority has offered an estate over $4.76 million in land compensation to settle the latter’s claim, which is about 46 times higher than the authority’s initial settlement offer of over $102,000.

Superior Court judge Juan T. Lizama refused to ratify $4.76 million settlement between the Marianas Public Lands Authority and the estate of Rita Kaipat, noting the controversy that has plagued other land compensation claims, particularly that of the Malite estate.

“The court is unwilling to grant its ‘stamp of approval’ to this settlement,” Lizama said. “The court is aware of serious questions that have arisen recently about the manner in which MPLA has handled land [compensation] claims.”

In an order he issued yesterday, Lizama said that the pleadings that had been submitted to the court contain insufficient information for him to evaluate the propriety of the settlement offer by the MPLA.

“The court has concluded that settlement agreements between an estate and its debtors should generally be private contracts and do not need the approval of the court and indeed do not warrant it,” the judge said.

“That said, there has been as yet no challenge to the propriety of the settlement. So, if the relevant parties believe the matter settled, then the court suggests that the funds described be transferred to the estate for disposition in the ordinary course,” he added.

The settlement involves the government’s taking of land registered in the name of Rita Kaipat, which measures approximately 6,000-sqm and now forms part of the Chalan Pale Arnold or Middle Road.

Unlike the issue in the Malite estate’s land compensation claim, the Kaipat estate has received no compensation from the government, according to Timothy Bellas, lawyer for Kaipat estate administrator Luis K. Pelisamen.

“This is not the same kind of case,” Bellas said. He said MPLA’s predecessor, the Marianas Public Lands Corp, made the appraisal for the value of the land. The MPLA reviewed MPLC’s appraisal report before reaching a settlement with the Kaipat estate, Bellas said.

Bellas said that the land’s appraised value that became the basis for the MPLA’s settlement offer—$4,761,955.38—was based on land valuation in 1992.

He said that, pursuant to a new law, the time of land taking by the government is determined based on when the governor certifies the property for public use. He said the governor’s certification came out in March 1992, although it appears that the government actually took the land for public use even before the governor issued the certification. As of press time, the MPLA could not provide the information as to when the government actually expropriated the private property.

Lizama rejected a proposed order submitted to the court by the estate’s administrator, which disclosed that the MPLA initially offered $102,242.19 to the estate to settle the latter’s claim. Negotiations between the administrator and the MPLA began after the court authorized Pelisamen to enter into negotiations in January 2004.

The administrator rejected the MPLA’s initial offer, until the authority made a new settlement offer in the amount of $4.76 million.

“As a result of the great perseverance of the administrator and his counsel, legal impediments to a new settlement offer were resolved through the administrative hearing process,” the administrator’s proposed order stated.

In the case of the Malite estate, the Attorney General’s Office has blocked the release of some $3.45 million in land compensation claim, saying there are circumstances surrounding the transaction that create a “strong appearance of ethical impropriety and conflicts of interest.”

The MPLA board approved the land compensation claim, a matter that was already decided by the Trust Territory court in 1978. That court had determined the compensation for the parcel of land, which now forms part of the Marianas High School, at $3,682.

The $3.45 million claim was based on an appraisal report that based its findings on land valuation in 1991.